Stuffed Shells with Kale and Sage Sausage in a Butternut Squash Sauce

Stuffed Shells with Kale, Sausage in a Butternut Squash Sauce

The Shells pre-oven. They could easily be made vegetarian by leaving out the sausage.

Lately my goal has been to up the health and nutritional value of the food I make. Stuffed shells sounded like a good way to use some of the kale and chard in the garden, and to put a little bit more of an autumnal twist on the dish, I made a sauce with butternut squash instead of the usual tomato sauce.

Stuffed Shells with Kale, Sausage  in a Butternut Squash Sauce

We used Kale and Swiss Chard in the salad as well as cherry tomatoes all from the garden.

This was made for a Monday night dinner, though there are several steps to making it. If I was really taking my time, I would have made the sauce better by roasting some tomatoes with the butternut squash and added  them along with some cream to the blender. Oh, and roasted garlic. Yummy, roasted garlic, tomato and butternut squash sauce with cream… that will be in a post for another dish. Soup anyone? (read more)

MelindaStuffed Shells with Kale and Sage Sausage in a Butternut Squash Sauce

The Late Autumnal Garden 2013

Beautiful Fall Foliage from our Raspberry Bush

Our Raspberry in full fall color

With the gorgeous mild weather we have been having, I was inspired to work out in the garden for some fall clean up. Much to my surprise my raspberry bush is giving us quite the show with it’s beautiful rust and burgundy foliage. I still have some mums, sage, carrots and beets in the garden.

I was able to memorialize our vivid and robust Swiss Chard from my last harvest. Next year I will include some of the recipes I experimented with.

Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard Harvested from the Garden

Here are a few more shots of the last of our 2013 garden.

Fall Pink Mum (read more)

MelindaThe Late Autumnal Garden 2013